Somewhere in everyone's life there is a shrine. They may not think of it as such, but that is what it is. It is where they keep their icons of sacredness: that which, for lack of a better term, they worship.
It represents the common thread which rules and informs every aspect of their lives, showing its influence in every act, every word, every decision. For some it may be an actual altar and/or representations of the christ, buddha, or their saints. For others it may be their jewelry box, or their car, or even their television. Sometimes people worship things which may seem strange to others. Oh well, freedom of religion is one of the principles on which this country is founded.
For some, it may even be the case that what they think is their shrine may, in fact, not be. Many is the house which has a picture of the christ on the wall, yet what the inhabitants actually worship is money and possessions.
This is my shrine, and these are my saints.
Ayn Rand -
Without question, this woman has had more influence on my life than any
other person. In her landmark work, "Atlas Shrugged", she articulated
a philosophy of life which resonated to the deepest levels of my soul.
More than 40 years ago, she illustrated the inevitable results of the mentality
that refuses to take responsibility for its own actions or even the responsibility
to act on its own behalf. Thousands of times in my life I have met the
characters in this book: people who produce nothing but demand the right
to live like parasites off the production of others. People who do nothing
but make excuses for their own actions and blame their failures on others,
despite the fact that they worked as hard to fail as some people work to
succeed. People who destroy because they are too lazy or weak to produce.
And, more evil than anything else, people who destroy because they love
to destroy and hate life. She also gave us something which we see very
little of today: non-destructive models of female strength. In her works
women were often every bit as strong as men, sometimes stronger, yet were
able to be strong without needing to demonstrate how strong they were by
tearing down men. This world needs more strong models of women who do not
have to become like the worst of men to prove how strong they are.
The Rev. Martin Luther King
-
He had a dream. And that dream was to free us all. Not only African Americans,
but all people from enslavement to their own fears, prejudices and hatreds.
The path of hatred, anger, and vengance is easy and seductive. Dr. King
would have none of it. Violence only breeds violence. Dr. King understood
and taught us all that we can change the world only when we rise above
the petty desire to seek vengance for past wrongs, because the vengance
of today becomes the wrong to avenge tomorrow. More than any other man
I know of, Dr. King was THE model of gentle and quiet strength. He lived
by his beliefs no matter how difficult that was, even though he knew he
would probably die for them.
John Lennon -
I learned zen from John Lennon. At the peak of his
success, John Lennon walked away from it all. He refused to conform to
the roles and expectations of others. He stayed home with his beloved wife
and baked bread for his son. He trod new paths away from the stereotypes
and demands for conformity. He made his spirituality and his spiritual
confusion and quest public, knowing he would be ridiculed for it. He was
brave enough to break out of the mold that the world tried to force him
into. He aired his soul, his pain, and what he had learned to his public,
so they might learn from his experience. He was one of the bravest men
of this century, not because of any heroic deeds but precisely from his
lack of them and his lack of need to be a hero. For ten years he let people
live vicariously through him, as did all the Beatles, but he did not become
addicted to the adulation of public life. He wrote the whole thing out
in a song, "Working Class Hero",
and left it for those of us who would listen to help us find our own way
out, then turned his back and never looked back. John was not larger than
life, he was precisely life size and made it clear to all of us that was
enough for him and, if it wasn't enough for us, we could all be damned.
Harry Truman -
Arguably the 2nd greatest mass murderer of all time.
Certainly responsible for more deaths from a single act/decision than any
other person in history. I cannot imagine the difficulty involved in making
the decision to slaughter half a million people with 2 blows. Yet the buck
did, indeed, stop there. Sometimes there is no good, only the least among
evils. Each of us must face the judgement of a creator some day. I am personally
quite glad that I do not have to go to my day of accounting with so many
deaths to explain. Yet, to not have acted would have resulted in even more
deaths. Tough decisions require great moral and spiritual strength. May
all my decisions be as wise. And may I never have to make one so difficult.
Jesus of Nazareth -
I have no doubt that if this gentle teacher were alive
today he would weep at the atrocities committed in his name, and perhaps
again throw the money changers out of the temple. I have no love for most
christians, and do not call myself one, for most of those who use that
name today profane it far more than they honor it. I do not worship the
man, but rather what he taught. More than any other so called "messiah",
he understood the challenges of life
Farmers -
Farmers know secrets about life very few people know
these days. Everyone used to know them. Those skills spelled survival in
a pre-industrialized world. Farmers deal with life everyday, growing it
to feed themselves and the rest of the world. Only the rest of the world
has forgotten who feeds them. They have forgotten where everything which
sustains them comes from. People have begun to think we eat information
or service and base our economy on these. When the food is gone, we will
see how many will remain fat on information and service. Many farmers are
single males, unwilling to let go of the secrets which keep the human race
alive. Deep within them they realize that their life was placed in their
possession for a purpose. They understand that they generate and nurture
life, and that they are the last who do. All others now consume. Even with
no one to nurture them, they will keep producing until they die because
they know that they draw their life directly from the earth and to leave
it is to begin to die. The human race seems to want to die now, because
nowhere is anything being created or grown. Just consumed. If it is going
to survive, it will learn how to from the farmers, if it doesn't, and they
die out, so shall the rest.
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